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184 arguments have you for your client?" The counsel tells the number, which must not exceed twenty. The judge has then to determine the weight of each argument separately, as it is delivered by the advocate; and he places in the scale a material weight corresponding to what he judges its value. He has a whole heap of these weights beside him, ranging from a drachm to a pound. If he has any difficulty in determining the weight of any particular argument, he consults with one or more of his brother judges, with respect to the material weight that should be placed in the scale. When the advocate for the plaintiff has concluded his pleading, the plaintiff's scale is more or less filled with the weights of different values, corresponding to what the judge deems the respective weights of the arguments. He pursues the same course with the arguments of the defendant's counsel; and, according as the one or the other scale inclines at the end of the pleadings, the cause is determined for the plaintiff or for the defendant. If, at the end of the pleadings, the scales prove to be equally balanced, the cause is determined by hazard. The judge puts his hand into a bag containing an equal number of black and white balls, and, according as he draws forth a black or white ball, the one party or the other gains the suit. The result is duly chronicled in a large ledger, kept for the purpose; and this forms a precedent for other similar cases.

As owing to the very equal cleverness of the advocates on either side, it usually happened that the arguments on both sides were equally balanced, and the ultimate decision had to be made by hazard, clients began to perceive that they might as well save the legal expenses, and decide their own causes, by